Case Study 5 - Root Cause Analysis - Google Pay 10% Increase in Payments

Problem: Google Pay has observed a gradual 10% drop in payments over a few months.

Initial Exploration:

The candidate begins by clarifying the nature of the decline — gradual and sustained — and proposes analyzing both external and internal factors.

Scoping the Issue:

• Demographics & Geography: The decline is uniform across all user segments and locations.

• Device Type: No specific drop-off among Android or iOS users.

• Campaigns or Marketing: No recent campaign from Google Pay that could be linked to the drop. A PhonePe campaign did coincide with a slight dip but doesn’t account for the full 10%.

• Seasonality: No recurring seasonal trends to explain the decrease.

• Competition: No significant competitive threat identified.

Deep Dive – Internal Product Analysis:

• Data Accuracy: Event tracking and analytics systems are confirmed to be unchanged and accurate.

• User Journey Mapping: The candidate outlines the key user payment flows:

1. QR code payments in person (e.g., stores or transport).

2. Merchant app redirection to Google Pay (e.g., Swiggy).

3. Manual initiation via the Google Pay app (especially with Apple devices).

Segmentation & Funnel Breakdown:

• The candidate distinguishes between merchant transactions and peer-to-peer/bank transfers.

• The drop is isolated to merchant transactions.

• Peer-to-peer and QR code scans for non-merchant payments are stable.

Root Cause Hypothesis:

• The candidate suspects the issue lies within the merchant transaction flow, particularly in the pop-up (widget) experience that prompts users for payment after redirection.

• They point out from personal experience that sometimes:

• The pop-up doesn’t appear.

• Merchants are not listed under “recent merchants”.

• The payment widget is missing on the merchant detail page.

Discovery:

• The interviewer confirms a recent release replaced SMS-based prompts with in-app pop-up widgets for merchant transactions.

• Post-release data shows a significant drop in user clicks on the pop-up — suggesting users aren’t seeing the prompt, hence not completing payments.

Conclusion:

• The drop in merchant payments is attributed to a failed adoption of the new pop-up widget system.

• The candidate recommends focusing on fixing this visibility issue first. If the drop continues, deeper investigation into technical failures (e.g., server issues) would be needed.

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